The SEI helps advance software engineering principles and practices and serves as a national resource in software engineering, computer security, and process improvement. The SEI works closely with defense and government organizations, industry, and academia to continually improve software-intensive systems. Its core purpose is to help organizations improve their software engineering capabilities and develop or acquire the right software, defect free, within budget and on time, every time.

Abstract

Since 2001, the CERT® Insider Threat Center at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has collected and analyzed information about more than seven hundred insider cyber crimes, ranging from national security espionage to theft of trade secrets. The CERT® Guide to Insider Threats describes CERT's findings in practical terms, offering specific guidance and countermeasures that can be immediately applied by executives, managers, security officers, and operational staff within any private, government, or military organization.

The authors systematically address attacks by all types of malicious insiders, including current and former employees, contractors, business partners, outsourcers, and even cloud-computing vendors. They cover all major types of insider cyber crime: IT sabotage, intellectual property theft, and fraud. For each, they present a crime profile describing how the crime tends to evolve over time, as well as motivations, attack methods, organizational issues, and precursor warnings that could have helped the organization prevent the incident or detect it earlier. Beyond identifying crucial patterns of suspicious behavior, the authors present concrete defensive measures for protecting both systems and data.

This book also conveys the big picture of the insider threat problem over time: the complex interactions and unintended consequences of existing policies, practices, technology, insider mindsets, and organizational culture. Most important, it offers actionable recommendations for the entire organization, from executive management and board members to IT, data owners, HR, and legal departments.

With this book, you will find out how to

Identify hidden signs of insider IT sabotage, theft of sensitive information, and fraud

Recognize insider threats throughout the software development life cycle

Use advanced threat controls to resist attacks by both technical and nontechnical insiders

Increase the effectiveness of existing technical security tools by enhancing rules, configurations, and associated business processes

Prepare for unusual insider attacks, including attacks linked to organized crime or the Internet underground

By implementing this book's security practices, you will be incorporating protection mechanisms designed to resist the vast majority of malicious insider attacks.